Tough Days at the Office

Editor’s note: This week’s post comes in the form of a phone conversation with Page at his home in Oudenaarde, Belgium. Here are excerpts from that conversation:

Bicycling: Well, Jonathan, you had a tough couple of races, at Zonhoven and Koppenbergcross.

Jonathan Page: Yeah, to say the least! For me the races went horribly. The Koppenberg went a little better, but just a feeling of nothing in the tank at Zonhoven. Riding on a whole different level—behind! Not to be negative, but just to be truthful.

Bicycling: Zonhoven is sort of a bizarre race in some ways, with so much sand, the monster descent into that quarry, the sandpits …

Page: Zonhoven is very difficult, to say the least, but it’s also very fun to ride in the sand and use the ruts to your advantage. I actually like riding in sand; it’s kind of like riding in snow. The start’s really important there. Then you go uphill all the way up until that sandpit. It’s just a long drag to get there and trying to gain position for that. Then you go down that descent—people went flying everywhere over handlebars and things. It’s just hard, the whole thing. There’s no rest anywhere.

Bicycling: So was it just a case of bad legs for you that day?

Page: I felt like a balloon, getting inflated the whole time. It was rather warm and that just made it even worse. I had a feeling of no power in the legs.

Bicycling: Has something like this happened before, something you can compare it to or learn from?

Page: I have a bad patch this time each year. So I’d say that I won’t be too disappointed right now, but I don’t think I’ve ever been this down low for so long. Like, I have a race coming up Saturday that I normally do pretty well at, then things start to get better usually. Let’s hope so.

Bicycling: How do you deal with being in a rut?

Page: My trainer and I are trying to figure it out, my next step in the program. It’s hard because there are a lot of races now during this time. Like, I’ll have three races coming up this week. So is it better to race through it and train through it and suffer, or is it better to say sayonara to some money and train? Well, I don’t really have much of an option right now, so we’ll have to figure it out.

Bicycling: So what’s the conversation between you and your trainer like? Do you talk about power, how you feel, what exactly? You don’t race with a power meter, do you?

Page: Not during the race—I normally use it just for training. We’ll assess what’s going on. Right now we’re trying to figure it out, and we’re stumped a little. Todd, my trainer, is in Seattle, so we Skype and look at the training files online and that sort of thing. I was good in America; now I’m not so good.

Bicycling: Is the conversation more data-driven or more anecdotal, or both?

Page: Both. With cyclocross it’s hard to look into data. Like, “OK, you’re running uphill and your heart rate’s pegged the whole time.” But it could be interesting to race with one sometime. I’ve done it in the past. It’s good to know because you can put out a lot of power, more than you think.

Bicycling: Back to Zonhoven, it looked awesome from a fan’s point of view but so difficult to race.

Page: Yeah, I’m mean, if you’re behind, you just get bottled up. There’s only one route down those sections and so everyone has to funnel to get down the sandpits. It’s like you hurry up then you wait.

Bicycling: Is the one rut your only option in the sand?

Page: When it’s really deep, yeah. Mud’s a whole different thing. It can change every lap.

Bicycling: What about Koppenbergcross? Did you feel good going into it?

Page: I felt pretty good actually. Didn’t have big swollen legs or anything. I started OK then made a mistake. After the first cobbled section up the hill I took the right turn into the field, then it goes downhill a bit, then up the pasture, and there was a person in front of me—well, I didn’t see the line, the rut, and I hit it the wrong way and my bike went flying out from under me, and I landed really hard and screwed up my hood and the chain fell off.

Then I couldn’t get my chain back on and I was the last guy in the bike race. That was right at the beginning of the race, in the first quarter of the lap. I didn’t even see it coming—I just went bam! on the ground.

Bicycling: But you kept going.

Page: I got back on but then had to run with the chain off and then try to get it back on again. It was really bumpy. It was the driest Koppenberg I’d ever done in something like eight races for me there.

Bicycling: You’ve said it’s a great race. Why exactly?

Page: It is a great race, with the Koppenberg climb and its place in the Tour of Flanders. All the people around here know it. I think there were 20,000-plus there watching the race. People love it. And I have to say, even though I was the last guy in the race, I still got a lot of cheers around the whole thing, so that was fun. That doesn’t always happen here in Belgium. If you suck, then “Booooooo!” [Laughs]

Bicycling: Did you feel good after you finally got going?
Page: I felt OK for a while, but then I figured I was so far back that I’d just use it as training. And I moved up, but I was just so far behind time-wise that there was no coming back. Then it started raining and things got really slippery.

Bicycling: How do you adjust? It’s bone dry and you’re flying around the course, then it’s raining and you have these tricky descents.

Page: Well, yeah, that’s what a good cyclocross racer can do—adapt to circumstances. But I have to admit, the cobblestones were super-slippery but the real thing was the pavement sections that you came on to. They were oily and I almost ate it one time. And on the other descents, where the riders were sliding out, once it starts raining it gets really slick there too. My mechanic sensed that and saw the rain coming in because up on the Koppenberg it’s so big you can see it coming. Franky, my mechanic, told me “OK, next lap we change and put on mud tires.”

Bicycling: It’s great he can read and react that quickly.

Page: That’s something we have going for us. We don’t need to communicate too much. He just takes care of things.

Bicycling: By the way, what was with that house on the tight corner that Stybar hit?

Page: Oh yeah. The corner marshals were telling us to go really slow there. That was easily done because it’s where all the cow poop runs down. That’s a farmhouse that he hit. So, how shall we say, there’s always lots of debris there.
Bicycling: Is it pretty standard that they put in a corner like that?
Page: Oh yeah! They do that kind of stuff. If you hit the brick wall it’s your own damn fault. [Laughs]

Bicycling: What do you do on these days in between races?

Page: Well, today I did some grocery shopping, stopped by a friend’s house for coffee. Went for a short recovery ride, very easy.

Bicycling: Do you ride your road or ’cross bike on easy days?

Page: The ’cross bike, with road tires.

Bicycling: At this point in the European ’cross season, what observations can you make? Niels Albert and Kevin Pauwels are the recent hot riders taking the wins.

Page: It hasn’t been super-duper muddy yet, so it’ll be interesting how guys adapt, and I’m sure those two will do just fine. They’re just motoring. I just find it amazing that one day guys can be so much better than the next. They’re doing something right.

Bicycling: Pauwels was so impressive Sunday. He's not the biggest rider out there—he's rather compact and holds his own, so strong, efficient.

Page: Yeah, his riding style is very smooth. And he's a sweet guy. He's got autism; he doesn't say much, if you noticed in the interviews on TV. This guy just wins a huge race and he smiles and doesn't say much. I kind of appreciate that about him. It's really impressive.

Bicycling: Finally, is there anyone else who’s really impressed you so far this year?

Page: Well, (Sven) Nys. He's always there.

Bicycling: Which races are you doing next?

Page: Saturday is Dottignies, in the French-speaking part of Belgium, only 30K from here. Then Sunday it’s Ronse, which is 12K away. Dottignies I’ve done a lot, but Ronse is only in its second year and last year it was a national race, so I never did it, but I’ve heard it’s very difficult.

A Part of Hearst Digital Media
Bicycling participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.